The Eighth Page

The Eighth Page Presents: “Snyder Center Not Even That Great”: An Exeter Guest-Report

As our peers at Phillips Academy Andover celebrate the opening of their precious Snyder Center, I have a few thoughts of my own on the pride and joy of our rivals.

How does a school spend over three hundred million dollars and not include a single computer laboratory? From a strictly aesthetic perspective, it fails on three fronts — too much blue, no Sci-Fi posters, and a complete and utter lack of Exeter branding.

But beyond the design, the atmosphere of the center itself has an eerie vibe, completely different from the cozy frigidity we’ve come to expect here at the better Phillips Academy. First, each room fails to create an equilibrium of empathy and balance. One room has too much empathy and not enough balance, and the next lacks empathy but abounds with balance. The squash courts take up needless space that could be used as recreation grounds, places for solemn reflection and chess practice.

Worst of all, the Snyder Center lacks the cold harsh winter conditions and grave acceptance of fate we at Exeter are burdened with, and which strengthen our character. Their seemingly limitless supplies of fans serve simply as distractions from our collective eventual demise. The reality that we all slip away slowly into the void, and how our lives here, at this school, or on this planet, all amount to nothing — all your feelings, emotions, and worries mean nothing in the timeline of history, and that time will move on without you. You, and all of us with you, will disappear into oblivion, and in time you will be forgotten — ceasing to exist, then ceasing to be remembered. Time’s arrow neither stands still nor reverses. It merely marches forward, and you will be crushed in its path.

Overall, the Snyder Center is a waste of money for our rival, and we look forward to beating them in hearty competition. Till then, fellow Exonians, live long and prosper.